Happy Thanksgiving to all of celebrate. Hah
hah hah, Alison Roman, admired for her spontaneity and sought after for her imaginative presentations
wherever people gather to entertain and have a good time. Sandra Bullock! Heck yes! In
the next hour, Alison will put together a festive Thanksgiving. Look at her shaking
her thing. Filled with an abundance of creative ideas for everyone who likes to surround themselves
with funky family and friendly friends. Welcome to the Home Movies Thanksgiving Special. Thanksgiving take one. Mark. It's a big day. It's turkey day. I've done
Thanksgiving menus every which way possible. I've done all the classics. I've done the
new spinny spins. I've done 30 minutes. I've done easiest ever, creamiest ever, crispiest
ever, whatever you get the point. But for me this menu is truly the most delicious and
like best representation of the meal. I wanted my perfect Thanksgiving meal and that has
like crunchy salads and two pans of stuffing and lumpy mashed potatoes and like a delicious
apple tart. Everything sort of revolves around the turkey even though it's notoriously everybody's
least favorite thing so I feel like you really have to go hard on the salads and the sides
to compensate for the fact that everybody's eating turkey which is like womp womp. So day one is a prep day. It's a meditative
day. I'm just making sure I have my keys and I do, okay let's go. So I was like supposed
to hold the door open for you? You want to make sure you pick up your turkey because
that needs to be seasoned at least a day in advance and you want to make sure you pick
up your bread because that needs to be torn so that it can dry out overnight. Isn't it
sad that I'm always alone? I feel like we're creating this. Yeah where I live alone except
for when all my friends come and eat my food and make fun of me. I'm here to pick up my
turkey that has been defrosted and our sandwiches and our turkey wings. Thank you. So we're gonna go in, I'm gonna get a loaf
of bread, it's sort of like don't cook with any wine you wouldn't drink, like I wouldn't
make a stuffing with any bread I wouldn't eat. I got the bread. We're gonna walk back
home. I have to pee and then we are going to hydrate some more and then make a mental
and emotional game plan for the next 48 hours. 36 hours really. Oh thank you so much, thank
you, we're making one right now, yeah, Thanksgiving. An important part of prep day is cleaning
out your fridge. We have orange marmalade that I've made, jam
that I've made sauerkraut that I've made, one tablespoon of shallot pasta paste, that
can go, fermented cabbage from a hot dog party you know it's a fine line between like spoiling
and fermenting and I like to think that anything can be fermented if you try hard enough. Anything
that I feel like won't last at room temp is going back in the fridge but like even eggs
can come out. So just kind of making way for all the things that are about to bombard your
refrigerator including this massive bird that's about to sit in there overnight. The first
thing I'm going to do is roast the turkey wings so that I can make my stock. Turkey
stock is one of the only stocks that I will like go through the effort of roasting the
bones first and I'm not using bones I'm using wings and we're not going for like a delicate
turkey soup here, we want like intense turkey roasted flavor. Wings have a really nice ratio
of cartilage to skin and fat. It's not a ton of meat and but that's okay because we're
not here for the meat we're here for the , the fat, the flavor and that I can already see
on the screen the cartilage, the fat, the flavor. I'm gonna pop these into a 450 oven.
I'm gonna rotate them in about 20 minutes but these are going to go in there for almost
like 45 minutes at 450. David how much do you think your turkey costs? Dan how much
do you think a turkey costs? 16 pounds. Wait $35 total? Really no guesses David? $35 for
a turkey. This turkey almost weighing 16.36 pounds cost $114.36. We're gonna flip the
turkey wings now. So see how nicely darkened they've gotten
and this is about halfway through cooking. If you've roasted a chicken or a turkey you
know that what a golden brown skin looks like and you're just looking for the same thing
here. I know 450 seems like really high heat, but like I said like, there's so much skin
and bone. These wings are massive. It's going to take them a really long time to get brown.
So you know I would say keep roasting them always be roasting. Cool. We're going to make
our turkey stock right now I'm going to take this pot which you'll see again because we're
going to use it to make our potatoes. I'm going to heat up a little bit of oil and I'm
going to sear the liver and the neck and just get them kind of golden brown on each side.
You don't have to make your own stock this is not something that is required of anybody,
I just like to. It's like something that that feels like part of the Thanksgiving ritual
to me. So my turkey stock has turkey wings, it has turkey giblets in it, and any sort
of vegetable that you already have for your Thanksgiving meal, so onions, celery, carrots
if you've got them. Gorgeous. These look so good I was so repulsed by them and now I'm
like a true glow up. I'm going to add water to this pot. I bet I'll add 10 cups. You guys
want any guesses I don't. I like when people guess. Hell yeah. To the top. So I am just scraping
up the bits using a wooden spoon uh if I had my fish spatula I'd be using that but it's
in the car and I just remembered that. Why is it in the car? We don't know. Because you
don't want to travel without your spatula. Missing fish spatula. If you've seen it please
call the number below. Okay we are going to season the turkey. Finally the moment has
come. Equal parts brown sugar and kosher salt. This is a 16 pound bird. This is definitely
on the larger side. If you had something closer to a 12 pound bird, I would recommend going
like a third of a cup, a third of a cup, but I'm gonna do a half a cup, a half a cup. I
like my turkey very peppery and part of that is making sure that your pepper is like pretty
coarsely ground and I'm estimating what three tablespoons of cracked pepper looks like because
I'm not going to measure it. Buckle up. Get cozy with that peppermill and get grinding.
The salt is there for seasoning but so is the brown sugar it's not to make the turkey
sweet. I don't like sweet foods, you know this. I would never give you a sweet turkey.
This is not like a lacquered bird. It's simply there to balance out the saltiness and the
savoriness and it's going to give you like a gorgeous, gorgeous beautiful skin. It's
not like when we roast this turkey we are going to be eating a half a cup of salt and
a half a cup of sugar. A lot of that is going to run off and we're not going to use it.
So you want to use about half of the brine on this underside and just like a thin layer.
It'll start to dissolve almost immediately. I like doing this so much. To me like rubbing
a little seasoning on a protein like this is like very, it's kind of like romantic,
I hate to use that word. You're taking a lot of time and tender care with something, like
I'm a pretty hasty cook but like right now I'm like holding each wing and within the
palm of my hand, I don't know it feels like a tender moment. Don't forget the butt. Grow
up David. It's honestly like decorating a cake with sprinkles where you want to like
put the seasoning in your hand and like go like that almost like if you've ever built
a sand castle. Step aside leeks. There's our turkey. You want to come up? Uou want to be
on the camera? How does Margot make pie crust? For the dessert I was really like racking
my brain on how I was going to approach it and like gave it a lot of thought of like
what do I want this Thanksgiving? Like what what is to me the best version of Thanksgiving
dessert? We already know that that pumpkin pie is out. It was never on the table literally
or figuratively. It's not for me so that's out and then I was thinking about apples and
then I I did like I was like okay I'll do like a cool tart with like a shortbread crust
and like a crumble whatever. I, I went through the motions I did the testing, I made the
thing, I ate the thing. It was good, it was fine and at the end of the day all I wanted
was a really gorgeous and extremely simple like apple tart. All right friends, pie crust.
In this bowl, two and a half cups of all-purpose flour, one teaspoon of kosher salt, two teaspoons
of sugar and to that I'm going to add two and a half sticks of unsalted butter. And
now comes the fun part where we mix with our hands. Basically we are smooshing the butter
into the flour and this is gonna do the thing that makes the dough flaky and this is as
much as I'm gonna mix it right now. I've got a quarter cup of that ice water in here and
then I'm going to do a tablespoon of vinegar and I'm going to drizzle this over the top.
I kind of like to start with half of it and shake the bowl and this does a lot of the
heavy lifting for you before you have to use your hands. I'm going to dump this whole thing
out onto the counter. I'm going to cut it in half, and actually put it right on top
and press it. This is effectively kneading it. I think that at the end of the day, a
small, beautiful, crispy, tart, tender piece of apple with a flaky crust is all a) you
have room for and b) all you really need. So for me it's gotta be like a beautiful,
simple apple tart. Good night. Okay, two little princes going to sleep. Now we're gonna tear our bread and then we'll
probably strain the stock and that's it. I am making two pans of stuffing. These are
the same types of stuffing. There's no variation on the stuffing, one doesn't have meat, there's
no smoked oysters, there's no secret vegetable. Two regular ass stuffings. They're perfect.
It's the best thing on the table, it's the thing that everybody wants seconds of, and
the thing you want to eat the next day. So that's why I'm making two. This is a campania loaf, which is a sourdough,
crusty bread. I'm gonna cut this in half, because I need an entry point into this loaf.
I go a little bigger than bite size, and if it's too small then it becomes like a bowl
of mush. So you know I don't want to freak anyone out, but don't mess this part up. I'm
just kidding. Think of it as delicious croutons, soaked
in turkey stock and butter and celery and onion. We don't want wet bread. We want custardy
croutons. Wet bread < Custardy crouton. You know what I mean? Anyone can do this, even
David. Some of these are are a bit big. I was trying to do it where you get bread and
crust. I know, which I really appreciate, it's very thoughtful. But it wasn't happening
for me. As you can tell it took a lot of brute strength, determination, focus, but when all
is said and done, we ended up with two gorgeously, perfectly filled sheet pans of torn bread
that's going to dry out overnight, and we are gonna make stuffing with it in the morning. So our turkey stock has been going for about
three hours. Look how nice and deeply golden it is. I haven't really done anything to it.
I haven't skimmed it, I haven't tended to it, it's just been quietly simmering away
back here while I did everything else. I'm gonna eat this turkey meat, by the way, that's
a real chef's treat. I'm gonna fish out the wings which are extremely tender and fall
apart. Fall-y apart-y? Fall party? I'm also gonna grab that neck. Oh my gosh, there's
one more wing in there! I got distracted by the turkey neck. Low-key my favorite part
of the turkey stock is actually the celery that braises in there. It's kind of flavorless,
but soft and tender. I will probably eat a lot of that celery from that pot. So to recap, we've cleaned the fridge (mostly).
We've seasoned the turkey. We've torn the bread. We've made the turkey stock. We have
made the tart crust. We have hydrated. We're gonna get a good night's sleep. We are not
gonna scroll endlessly on our phones before we go to bed because we need to be alert and
focused for tomorrow. It's like before a marathon. I've never ran a marathon. I don't know if
you can tell. But whatever sport analogy you need to get through this video. This is the
day before the marathon. Welcome back, it is day two. It is the next
day. It is Thanksgiving Day and I am going to start my day, with you here. The first
thing I'm going to do is I'm going to turn my oven on. I'm going to preheat it and I'm
going to roll out the pie crust. I'm going to fill it with apples and I'm going to bake
this apple tart. So it's sort of like the last thing you eat is the first thing you
make on this very special day. I have not committed to galette or tart as the name for
this, so just assume that I mean one if I end up calling it the other. I'm gonna weigh
out about four pounds of apples. Again, I kind of just bought a bunch because they're
in season now. Big apple, small apple, whatever. Big apple, we live there. I'm going to melt
one stick of butter. We're going to melt that and then we're going to brown it and then
I'm going to mix together a half a cup of light brown sugar. I don't really use cinnamon
when I bake that often but because this apple tart is so simple, there is something really
nice about a little bit of cinnamon there, and when I eat it, it's very cinnamon toast
crunchy to me. You hear that butter? Isn't that sweet? So
notice how it gets quieter as it browns. I'm putting this in here so I can use the sheet
pan. I'm not made of sheet pans, but I am made of bowls. I have a lot of sheet pans.
I realize that's not the case for everybody, so I wanted to be cognizant of the amount
of sheet pans I was using and I think I kept the total number down to two? Or was it three?
Three. And now a public service announcement from Alison Roman: the sheet pan. I love sheet
pans. I own at least six, because I find them to be an invaluable kitchen tool that you
will find endless uses for. I use them for storage, and for cooking, and for blah blah
blah. They are an affordable kitchen tool. They stack neatly on top of each other. Not
nonstick, just like a little stainless steel baking sheet. If you have one, you may as
well have five. Point being, my wish for you is to own at least two sheet pans. All right,
so I'm lining these with parchment paper before I do anything else. You can see all I did
was wrap this in plastic. There's no dry spots, no bits of flour. This is like a beautiful,
smooth and pliable pie crust. I'm gonna roll this out into a pretty thin disc. I like to
flip mine back and forth. I think that prevents sticking, but also if you have any cracks
and holes like that, you can literally just patch them back up together. I think most
people tend to put a lot of emphasis on the center of the crust and they roll from the
middle, which means the ends and the edges tend to be thicker than they ought to be.
That's why these pins are actually shaped this way, so you can kind of apply even pressure
throughout. For the apples, we're not going to really do much to them other than cut them
because everything's going to happen after the fact. I love an Arkansas Black, I love a Macoun. It's a good one. Wow. The assembly part is
very easy and should not give you any stress at all. It's kind of like you can tuck things
in an edible arrangement. You want a pretty even layer, I would say is my piece of advice,
but don't overthink it, you know? And I've left about an inch to two inches, depending,
of border just to make sure that I can have crust to fold it up. Unfortunately for me,
I can't find my pastry brush. If anyone sees it, let me know. But I am gonna just spoon
the butter and sprinkle the sugar over and then I'll use my hands for the egg wash. In
all of its lopsided, sort of, uneven glory, we celebrate the apple galette. This is kind
of gross, I will admit. I am sorry I do not have a brush, your fingers are the best tool
if you don't have one. Nature's brush. Yeah that's what they call your fingers, nature's
brush. And I'm gonna sprinkle these with sugar and a little bit of flaky salt. This one's
not as pretty as this one. There's always one. Anyway, into the oven. We're gonna make some stuffing. So stuffing
is one of those things that I am very particular about. So for me, it's got to be a lot of
celery, tons of garlic and onions, some white wine, some herbs, stock, eggs and just a ridiculous
amount of butter. It is my greatest joy to put out one pan of stuffing and then have
it disappear. And people be like *sigh* and then I'll be like, "There's more!" And they're
like, "Yay!" And then, not only do they get to have more stuffing tonight, but they get
to take some home because it's really nice wrapped up in foil, or you can put it in one
of your resealable containers. And then the next day, people wake up, they're probably
hung over, they eat a little stuffing. Chef's kiss. You can bake stuffing in anything you want.
If you have a 9x13 Pyrex glass baking dish, that's great. Classic stuffing vehicle. I've
even made stuffing in a loaf pan. If you had a cast iron, a pie plate, tbd sized baking
dish, you can make stuffing in anything. And that is as close as you'll ever get to a kitchen
tour. I am today using regular onions, garlic and celery. You can cut this any way you like.
I'm gonna do just like, thinly sliced. And I will be peeling this onion, thanks for asking.
This is sort of the most time-consuming dish that requires the most knife work. This is
also the kind of thing if you're like, "Can I use a garlic press for this?" Sure, go off.
Do it. Use a garlic press, see if I care. If there's an opportunity to use celery, I'm
going to take that opportunity and I'm going to exploit it. I am going to use so much celery,
it will be unmistakably in whatever it is that I'm using. It's not to me like a flavor
that should be quiet. It should be loud. I just don't want people to think of it as a
throwaway vegetable that should only be used as like, background flavor and chicken broth. Wow, a perfect four cups. Oh my God, is today
your day? It's my day! Everything's coming out Roman. I'm going to melt one stick of
butter and then to that, I'm going to add a half a cup of olive oil. I'm gonna saute
it until it's nice and tender, softened. I'm not looking for any color or caramelization
or browning, it's just to get everything soft, and evaporate some of the liquid inside of
it. I'm gonna go get some thyme and oregano from the garden. Welcome to my humble garden.
I have thyme and what was sold to me as oregano and marjoram. It's the same plant, they're
both oregano. I'm gonna actually use a lot of this today so that's good. That makes me
feel like I'm really living that urban garden life. Siren in the background. Clipping fresh
herbs. Living the dream. We interrupt this program to take out the
galettes. Stunning. Gorgeous. So see how they're deeply browned. There's some caramelization
on the outside and that's okay, but there's like bubbling here and that's from the apples.
This to me, is perfect. I'm thrilled to get to eat this. Now, where am I gonna put it?
I'm gonna put one on that chair. Back to herbs. Truly nothing compares to a fresh herb. Put
that on my tombstone. So see how everything is very soft and tender but not mushy. I'm
gonna go a cup. I'm using just like a regular ass Sauvignon Blanc. When people add like
two tablespoons of wine, I'm like what's that doing? That's why I do a lot of wine, because
I'm evaporating the liquid where the acidity stays. Can you believe in a few short hours,
we'll be eating Thanksgiving? I know I can't. I think it's also because last year, I kind
of took it off. I mean, a lot of us took it off, most of us took it off. All right, so
see how it's definitely reduced by about half. Maybe even a little bit more? So that's good,
we want some of that liquid. And you can always taste it, and if you're like, oh that still
tastes like wine, then keep cooking it. The last thing we're going to need to do is make
the liquid part, or the binding agent, of the stuffing. You can make stuffing without
eggs but to me, the eggs really make the whole thing cohesive, rather than just like, again,
soaked seasoned pieces of bread. So I'm gonna take that turkey stock from yesterday. We'll
need about two and a half cups. I'm gonna just crack three eggs into this bowl and I'm
just whisking it until it's very well blended. All right, cool. So this is well blended.
We're gonna add our herbs, we are going to add our bread to this mixture and I'm gonna
toss it repeatedly, just to make sure that all the bread is going to get evenly soaked.
I think we're good actually. I think we're fully absorbed. So I'm going to add the celery,
the onion, the butter, the olive oil, the wine into this mixture. And again this is
providing a bulk of your flavor, but also a lot of moisture. I do feel like the guy
in Jaws that's like, "We're gonna need a bigger boat." Like, "We're gonna need a bigger bowl."
And there are raw eggs in here, so I can't legally advise you sampling this, but occasionally
I might put it all on the line for you. Okay, so here's my favorite part of making stuffing.
I like to sort of arrange the top. It's almost like when you're decorating a pie, arranging
the top for how you want it to look when it comes out of the oven, when you present it,
when it's on the table. There is like an art to this, you know. No hard edges, only fluffy
torn craggly parts. And see how it's like just coming up over the baking dish? That's
exactly what we want. To me, this looks really beautiful and I cannot wait to eat this. And
again, we're not pressing down, so be gentle. Kind of leave some room between the stuffing
and the foil. This is going to go in a 375 oven for about 40 minutes. And then I'll take
it out of the oven to free it up, so I can put the turkey and stuffing in, and I'm just
gonna set it aside. And then when the turkey comes out of the oven, I'll take the foil
off and I'll crisp it at a 425 oven. So one stuffing, two bakes. It's also time to take
the turkey out. I take my turkey out about three hours before I know that I want to put
it in the oven, and this is just to take the chill off, which will give you a more evenly
cooked turkey. This is just a very large bird and so there's gonna be more liquid than a
chicken so try not to be freaked out. Understand that it's part of the process. Drain the liquid
and move on with your life. There's a million ways to roast a turkey. You can roast it hot
and then reduce the temperature. You can roast it very low and slow for a very long time.
I like somewhere between the two methods. So I go 325, which is not exactly super hot,
but it's also not so slow that it's gonna take me six hours, because I don't have that
kind of time. Roasting this turkey on a sheet pan frees me up to like, do a lot of stuff
scattered around it. If you have onions, great. If you have leeks, awesome. If you have shallots,
even better, because that's what I'm gonna use. Also, is this one shallot, or is this
one shallot? I think this is one shallot. You could throw in an onion if you want. I
guess I have one, why not, let's do it. LFG. I'm highly caffeinated. That's crazy. Sometimes I'll take a head of garlic, slice
it crosswise, just put it in the center and that's what your turkey will rest on. I'm
gonna take this onion and shallot, stuff it inside. It's just creating a steamy environment,
so it's not just like roasting in the void. What I will do is drizzle everything on the
sheet tray with olive oil and then maybe give a little salt to the shallots, but that's
it. Honestly if you can roast a chicken, you can roast a turkey and that's like, that's
it. It's not more complicated than that. Big Turkey has you out there believing that it's
something to stress over, but it's just a big chicken. I'm really tempted to truss the
legs this year. Trussing is a fancy word for tying. To me, the biggest benefit of trussing
is that you expose the skin on the thigh which gives you a better chance of browning. I stand
by my statement that I'm not going to tuck the wings because I like how crispy these
get and when you tuck them, they sort of just steam behind the breast and you don't get
that experience. So I'm going to tie a little string, a little bracelet, around his leg
and then I'm crossing it over the other leg, and that's it. These wings are truly akimbo. Great use of
the word, very rare that there's an exact right moment to use it. I'm gonna wash my
hands and then we're gonna see it in like an hour and a half, we'll start to baste it.
And it fits. So we'll see you in a bit. Our stuffing is coming out of the oven. It's been
in for about 45 minutes. Am I gonna try it right now? Absolutely. It is so good. This
is my favorite food of all time. So far, we've done what I think are like three of the most
important parts of Thanksgiving. We've done our dessert. It's baked, it's out of the oven.
We've done our stuffing. It's baked, it's out of the oven. The turkey is in the oven.
So let's say everything from this moment forward just goes completely off the rails, I will
say that I am pretty pumped for this dinner. Just saying, be proud of yourself up into
this moment and don't stress that other things haven't gotten done because you've already
done so much. Nice pep talk to yourself. Me to me. I feel
like I should be more flustered for like cinematic appeal, but like I'm just not. I'm not worried.
Okay, we're gonna make mashed potatoes. For mashed potatoes, I find it really nice to
use a mix of a creamy, waxy potato, like a yukon gold, and a flowery sort of baking potato,
like a russet. And this sort of gives you a fluffy, starchy texture and this gives you
like a rich, creamy texture and I think married together, makes the perfect mashed potato.
Another kind of fussy thing that I rarely do: peeling a potato. If you are a person
who grew up with mashed potatoes with the skins on, and that is something that brings
you comfort and joy, you should definitely feel free to leave the skin on. But for me,
it kind of messes with the texture. You want every piece of potato that goes into this
pot to be the same size. If you dice up a potato tiny, sure, it'll cook a lot faster,
but that potato will also be full of water. So pieces like that. Idahos and yukon golds,
living in harmony inside this pot. You're cooking your potatoes in water that should
be as salty as the water you cook your pasta in. This is the same principle, in that it's
your first and best opportunity to season the potatoes from the start. Those potatoes
will probably take 40 to 45 minutes to fully cook. So this mixture we're just gonna heat
up gently and let it simmer on very, very low while the potatoes boil. Okay, so in this
pot, I'm gonna go ahead and add one and a half cups of heavy cream and then one cup
of buttermilk. If you are using whole milk instead, that's fine. Keep the proportions
the same. Lots of pepper. I think pepper and potato is like a beautiful and very underrated
combination. This garlic smashed into the cream does a few things. One, it seasons the
cream mixture with this beautiful mellow garlic flavor and lastly, the garlic softens so much
while it simmers in the dairy that it becomes something that you're able to mash into the
potato. All right, I'm gonna put a tart on this cutting board and take back what is rightfully
mine. When you find yourself being like, this is stressful, like I can't do this because
my space is small, or I live in this apartment or whatever, just remember that no one's asking
you to do this multiple times a year. This is one day a year and if you're like yeah,
if you're looking for the stuffing it's, uh, in the bedroom on my dresser. Like totally
fine, not weird at all, and just like roll with it. Okay, well, I feel victorious. Saved
another sheet pan, so we have three sheet pans at play. Honey nut squash. It is a tiny little squash.
It is most similar to a butternut squash. If you're a fan of sweet potato casserole,
I applaud you. This is my sweet potato casserole. This particular round, I'm doing honey nut
squash because a) it's all the rage b) it's small and cute and c) you do not have to peel
it which I love. People are weird about squash skin. I am like all in on all the skin. Give
me all those squash skin, I'll eat the skin. Technically you can eat the skin of any squash,
it's just how enjoyable is it. A squash stem sucks. This is a dangerous thing to do. People
get here and that's when they hurt themselves. So this is the smart way, to cut off the stem
and then to cut it lengthwise. If you want to be a safe person, cut the stem off. If
you want to be a cool person - just kidding. So we are going to drizzle these with olive
oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then turn them over so they can roast in the oven.
The oven is at 325, which is definitely a lot lower than I would normally roast squash
at, but during Thanksgiving you make sacrifices that you wouldn't otherwise make, which is
like roasting your squash at a lower temperature because that's the time you have available
to roast it. That's probably going to be there for an hour and a half. So right now, our
oven is totally occupied. Full occupancy, no vacancy. The turkey's in there, the squash
is in there, so all I'm gonna kind of do right now is prep for the things that will go into
the oven after those things come out. First up are the mushrooms and the green beans.
I wanted a lot of different types of mushrooms. Just to kind of show you, we have little yellow
oysters, chicken of the woods. Fall is a great time for mushrooms. I'm like shocked that
more Thanksgiving recipes don't call for mushrooms. All right and these green beans. This is something
you can help me with, do you want to take the stems off with me? The humble green bean.
All you need to do here is take off the stem part and if you want to use a knife you can,
I just think it's easier and honestly, like a pretty fun task to just snap off the stem
part. This tail is fine, don't worry about taking it off. Honestly, if this were real
Thanksgiving, I'd be drinking already. I might. Wow, can we just, real quick - look at David,
David is like, psychopath neat. Also, you're taking off way too much green bean. Am I?
These are also pretty adult green beans. These green beans have definitely moved into a one-bedroom
apartment. Look at that bird! I know. Oh my gosh. I know,
she's looking nice. Okay, this is gonna get two onions, which is exactly how many I have
left. What a mitzvah. So this is pretty much done, all I have to do is toss it on a sheet
pan, season it, throw in the oven. All right, so to get this gratin on the road, we are
going to slice thinly these leeks. I would call this a perfect leek. I would call this
like a textbook leek. If it were up to me and I could design a leek, it would look like
this. Okay, so in this skillet, I'm gonna add a little olive oil. I would call these
thinly sliced, but you don't have to bust out a ruler. We're gonna let these leeks soften
and sweat and cook down and become about half their size. Here, as you can see, we're cooking
the white and light green parts and the dark green parts all at the same time. Meanwhile,
I'm going to take the stems off the kale. As I'm ripping it off the stem, I am tearing
it into large-ish pieces. If you want to use a different green in this recipe, you can
use beet greens, or mustard greens would be really nice. Swiss chard would be awesome.
Spinach would be great. You'll just need a lot more of it because spinach wilts down
to nothing. Working with like a handful at a time, I'm going to go ahead and add these
greens and let the gentle heat wilt them. I'm also going to add a tiny amount of crushed
red pepper flakes. Honestly, I would serve this just like this. It doesn't need the cream
or bread crumbs, but I also didn't need to make two apple tarts or three pans of stuffing.
Okay, I'm gonna add a cup and a half of cream to these greens. The greens are off the heat
now. We're good, we don't need to cook it any further because the cream is just there
to reduce in the oven. We're not doing that stovetop. I'm going with the old king of cheeses:
parmesan. This is my mac and cheese. Which is made of kale. It's a zoodle. I'm going
to mix some bread crumbs and olive oil together so we can sprinkle it on top for when it goes
into the oven. I'm using bread crumbs that I made, from that bread that I had yesterday.
You can use panko. I originally made this with panko and it was wonderful. Salt, pepper and about two tablespoons of
olive oil. Yum delish? I'll just hold on to that here while we free
up some oven space. Okay, we have to do a lot of things, like right now. I'm gonna drain
the potatoes, they're done. These potatoes have been on there for about an hour. You
know some people say if you pierce it with a knife or something, but I think that you
should just scoop one out, put it on your cutting board and see how it reacts when you
put a little fork on it. It should just crush and fall apart, almost. All right, our squash
has been in there for what, an hour and a half? That looks tender. That looks done.
Take a fork, easily pierce, absolutely tender, gorgeous, we love to see it. I'm gonna remove
this and just set it aside because I need to deal with this turkey. So she's looking
really, really good. I am going to drizzle it with a little bit more oil. This is going
to go back in. She's not totally done yet. We'll check it in another, let's call it 40.
I bet it'll take another hour though. So we have our potatoes. Here they are. They're
still steamy, they're still hot, they're cooked through. Your potatoes should be cooked enough
so that doing this breaks them up. I don't want a potato ricer, I don't own a potato
masher, I don't plan on purchasing either of those things anytime soon. It is, to me,
totally acceptable and even preferred to have texture in my mashed potatoes. So we have
our cream mixture, this has just been sitting and simmering lightly. The garlic is in there, it's totally softened,
and we're going to add a stick of butter in here. Leave it out but you'll miss it. Tis
a day of wants. Also, if done properly, even the lumpy potato, even the chunks of potato
that are lumpy, should still be like creamy and tender. I want my mashed potato to be
chunky and creamy at the same time. I want it all. Yeah, mashed potatoes are there for
a lot of reasons. To me, it's almost like a dip. It's not not a dip, yeah. A dip for
what? The turkey? A dip for everything, Dan. A dip for all things. A dip for your turkey,
a dip for a green bean, a dip for a little stuffing, a dip for a squash. Like, dip it
all. Everything gets dipped. I am going to kill the heat on those, put them in the back,
we're done there. I'm feeling weirdly together. Well nothing ever really goes wrong. I guess
that's the thing, why do we assume something's gonna go wrong on Thanksgiving? Why do we
assume the worst? We gotta stop putting that energy out there. We gotta stop putting out
the energy that we're gonna all panic or freak out or mess up or there's gonna be some disaster
on Thanksgiving that's gonna prevent us from having a meal. Let's say you take your turkey
out when it's supposed to be done and it's not done, put it back in the oven. If we're
supposed to eat at 7:00 and we don't eat till 8:30, bring out the snacks. Just remember
that it's all going to be okay, that we're all going to eat something and you know, carry
on. This turkey has been in the oven for now, three and a half hours. If done well, roasting
a chicken or a turkey, it'll tell you when it's done by the color that it is. But if
you really want to be sure, I like to temp it. There's a huge chance that a perfect breast
will give you an undercooked leg and thigh. Not inedible, but maybe a little tougher than
you want it to be. So I always say you know what, down for a breast that's like a little
bit drier because turkey breast meat is always a little bit dry. You're going to slice it
thin for your sandwich the next day anyway. Like you're going to smother it with gravy,
you're going to dip it in these mashed potatoes, it's fine. So when you're taking the temperature
for the turkey, you want to go into the deepest part of the thigh. You should be getting in
around like 160. We're at 155, baby. I'm gonna keep it in for like another 10 to 15. I have
11 minutes on the timer from when I said the turkey would be done, and I just said 10 minutes.
I'm like, locked in. That turkey and I are one. Cool. All right, our mushrooms are going
to go onto the sheet pan. Part of the beauty of using mushrooms that
are all different style /shape / sizes varieties is that they have different shapes and textures.
Each mushroom has such a different personality and that's part of the joy of cooking with
them I think. Have you ever had mushroom and green bean casserole? It's pretty good. It's
a little gloopy, it's a little needlessly rich, the green beans get a little soggy,
it does have crispy French's onions, huge plus. That said, I feel like I want my creamy
moments elsewhere so I'm distilling the essence of that dish which is green beans and mushrooms.
Definitely one of my favorite sides. I, I feel like it is distinctly Thanksgiving-y
although it could be good any time of the year but the beauty of these two vegetables
that seem so different roasting at the same time, the same temperature, on the same sheet
pan is honestly what Thanksgiving is all about. So I know this looks very full and I know
that you're like, you told me never to crowd the pan, these will shrink. It will get done,
they will cook down, everything's gonna fit. It's gonna be great. We're gonna drizzle this
with two the quarter cup of olive oil. Quarter cup seems like a lot. Mushrooms really love
olive oil. Mushrooms are very porous and if it feels dry then it's never gonna get that
like golden brown sheen. It's gonna always just kind of feel like dull. And then some
soy sauce. This turkey looks great. So I'm gonna let
this sit and as it sits what's gonna happen is a lot of that juice will start to come
out so you'll notice that like what juice is on the pan now will almost triple by the
time we uh want to make our gravy. I'm going to put my oven up to 425 and I'm gonna put
these mushrooms and onions and green beans in. We got to chill the wine. I was like panicking
so much about where I was going to put the wine. I was like I gotta fill a Fresh Direct
bag with ice and make a tote and like do all the stuff and I was like wait I have a regular
ass sized fridge now that has already been cleaned out and now that the turkey's moved
and all the vegetables are gone, I think by the grace of god I have room to put the wine
in the fridge. I was feeling rich, fridge rich. Part of the snack hour I'm gonna set
out a little vermouth spritz bar. It's not a cocktail but it's like a really fun two
ingredient spritz. It's soda water and it's vermouth. I don't know much about wine. I
don't know if you know that about me. I drink a lot of it. I've been told that I pick wine
only with labels that look like they could be drawn by a child. That says more about
natural wine culture than it does about me. So I don't really use a timer. Like you know
when people are blindfolded, their other senses are heightened. They saw a Bird Box. Honestly
yeah. If one sense is dull the others are heightened. It's just everybody knows that
okay. Why do you? How do you think Bird Box became a thing? They didn't just invent the
premise. Point being, I put the mushrooms in, I didn't set a timer, I didn't look the
clock, I'm not really sure because I've stripped myself of the timer. I think that my senses
are strong when they can tell the food's done because so far in in about every like four
other instances today, today-- Wow right as I open the oven. God that happens every time.
I think of a timer in my brain. I am a timer. I'm right and I take something out just as
the timer goes off. I'm like I feel like it needs 10 more minutes, David's like 11 minutes
remain and I'm like how did you know? So heightened senses, what do you think it is right now?
I think can I look at it, yeah I can look at it oh uh I think there's I would say those
need like 26 to 30 more. You've been 26 to 30. Yeah. Wow! 27. I'm not. I'm good at this.
Bird Box. I never saw a Bird Box. Sandra Bullock! Sandra call me. She's a a heroine of our time.
If this were 1842 or whatever, I would be like in the circus and they'd be like this
woman tells the time of the turkey when it's out of the oven like, it's a gift. Step right
up ladies and gentlemen like she'll guess the time, she'll guess the temperature, any
vegetable, any bird, nailed it. So you have your roasted squash and then to top it we're
gonna mix some brown butter toasted walnuts and some sticky dates. They're adding texture.
That's correct. I'm just gonna take the pits out of these dates. I'm just gonna tear them
in half. I like big plump pieces of date. If you wanted to chop these good luck chopping
a date is a fool's errand. They're sticky as hell and they stick to your knife and it's
very difficult. See how toasty? And now I'm going to add the dates to this
butter mixture and I'm just going to set it aside but I'm not going to dress the squash
until we're ready to eat. Salad time, baby. We call this the final frontier. These are
for salads because David said it couldn't be done and I said yes it can and we will
have not one but two salads and they will be distinctly different and valuable to this
table. You have one that's leafy and herby and you know just kind of straightforward
savory a little bit of lemon pepper salt. The other salad is a fruit salad. I'm going
to use apples, pears, persimmons and a mix of blood oranges and caracara oranges because
god I love a fruit salad. There's no real recipe for this it's more just like any fruits
you can get your hands on um slice them put them on a plate, squeeze them with lemon,
and the idea here is to have like different shapes, textures, vibrations. I'm trying to
make a monochrome salad here and I'm having great success. Uh it's called you know harvest
glam. At the risk of sounding like your cool aunt, this is truly a time to have fun. The
fruit salad is there because I do find value in like a sweet sort of fruity moment on your
table. The squash does that in some ways but that's more of like a warm cozy sweet this
is like a sort of bracingly acidic fresh sweet. Oh you know what, that's got to come out?
Wow they're perfect. Who needs timer when your brain's a timer? The stuffing is going in. She's coming in
hot. She's actually going in room temp, thank you. This gratin is going in. I've had to
pee for about an hour but I'm almost done so I'm not gonna go yet. Um okay last salad
last and final salad we haven't even gone to the snacks. Right now I'm so stressed out
that nothing's gonna be ready in time, or that I made too much food or not enough food
or like where is everybody, why are they late, that like the snacks are literally like olives
in a bowl figs on a plate, anchovies on a stick. Like we're good. We don't need like
a full cheese ball. People are always making cheese balls at Thanksgiving. Yeah I'm like
cheese ball. it's all about two salads. I don't know, honestly I don't even know that
I've ever had a cheese ball. I don't know why I think everybody makes them. In my head
that everybody makes them. Not this girl. Eating cheese balls I don't know but it is
a concern. I am concerned that that's like a thing that's going on behind my back. Okay
we've got chives, we've got tarragon, we've got parsley, we've got escarole, we've got
a second salad. I'm exhausted. What's real anymore? Escarole like I mentioned is a hearty
lettuce. It is bitter. It's you know more durable, that's why people like to cook with
it as well. At Thanksgiving, I don't want like a weak little lettuce who's going to
just like wilt and everybody's going to ignore. I feel like you want a salad that's going
to stand up to everything. You want to say you want a salad that's gonna be like I'm
not gonna take it anymore. It's gonna stand up to the rest of the meal. Tarragon, unsung
hero of the herb world. It is a really awesome flavor to get a bite of in a salad. If you
think about what is going on here it's literally just me talking to myself for 48 hours. Like
I'm grateful for our interludes but it's very weird to just have a conversation with yourself.
No, no one wants to do it and our escarole is gonna go in here and I'm not gonna dress
this salad just yet but I am gonna like have it ready to be dressed so we're pretty much
good. Come in. Happy Thanksgiving. Ah you look so
cute. Thank you. You're welcome. You guys can put your stuff in my room if you have
stuff to put in there and then I need one of you. This is not a bit I genuinely need
help my friend. Chris just arrived and he's going to help me do the snacks because I don't
have time. I'm going to do the turkey and the gravy. I am going to tip this bird to
get all of the juices out but before I do that I'm going to take these shallots and
I'm going to put them in this bowl. I'll drizzle them with vinegar and this will be you know
as I mentioned a side dish. And a lot of that juice is what's going to go into our gravy
and so all this is going to go into this measuring cup. You don't want any like visibly chunky
pieces. Okay so my gravy is tangy, it's salty, it's acidic, it's well balanced, it's deeply
meaty. It utilizes all of the juices that have come out of the turkey and it's fortified
with that beautiful turkey stock, that you've made it is just the right texture meaning
it's not too soupy, and it's not too thick and gloopy, not too soupy, and not too gloopy.
So I'm gonna start with four tablespoons of unsalted butter in this pot. In addition to
the one cup of pan drippings I'm gonna add three cups ish of turkey broth. And really
what we're doing here is this is like a roux and what this does is it toasts flour. We're
making liquid toast I don't know if that might not track but as this darkens it sort of tells
me when it wants the liquid to be added. Which is now. You want to do this slowly and it's
going to look really thick and sort of unmanageable at first but it's important that you stay
patient stay the course and I'm going to add a little Grey Poupon to the gravy. That's
about a teaspoon. I'm going to bring it to a simmer and we'll taste and see if we want
to add any more.To me it's not like a far-flung idea to add something like Grey Poupon to
your gravy because it's giving you acidity. It's giving you like sort of like a creamy
texture. It's giving Thanksgiving. It doesn't even need any extra acidity or salt it's like
perfect but when you start with really well seasoned turkey stock and the drippings are
really well seasoned you're gonna end up with like a really nicely seasoned gravy from the
jump. I've never in my life said from the jump. All right so for this bird, we're breaking
it down just like we would a chicken. I'm gonna remove the leg and thigh away from the
bird first and then I'll carve the breast and the wing away from the carcass. Stay as
close to that piece of cartilage as possible to free the breast. Free the breast. Okay
this turkey bone from this wing is giving me the business. Well that's it, Thanksgiving's
ruined. This is going to go into a pot and we're going to make turkey stock from this.
This is going to go in my mouth because I'm going to eat it. This is a disaster. It's
my worst nightmare. I hate a juicy cutting board. Please welcome to the stage my friend
Chris. Everybody, Chris. Yeah! Chris and I have spent the last three Thanksgivings together.
he's one of the people in my life who I trust sort of to just like fly with something if
we're like cooking together. Chris, welcome back. Thank you so much. We're so happy to
have you. We're gonna do anchovies and these peppers on a skewer. There's some figs and
I thought maybe you could just like saute them in a skillet until they're just warm.
This just needs to be sliced, the onions just need to be drained and put in a bowl. Some
of the olives are for vermouth and some of the olives are for snacking. I should have
brought my notepad. Yeah, did you get all that? I know. Okay, I got it. And you can
kind of work over here next to me. I'm done. There's no um okay I'm gonna put that on a
thing. I'm gonna get rid of this. Why is this? Okay I'm ready to carve this bird. Because
we were filming this, obviously I had to carve the turkey at the same time so I wouldn't
otherwise imagine uh carving the turkey while you were setting the snacks out. You kind
of want to carve the turkey when you're closer to eating. That said, you know we are. It's
a little peek behind the curtain guys, and the leg you know if you're an absolute psycho
you might try and slice the meat off, but I think you should just let it be. Also if
you're an absolute psycho, I try to slice the meat off the thigh. I think in the past,
I've just shredded it by hand honestly. I'm doing this sort of abstractly. That's perfect
actually. Wow you really aced the assignment. I was fishing for compliments. There no pun
intended. I think for me, the moral of the story with turkey is like if your gravy's
great and the turkey is seasoned well, you're all set. Ready. I gotta say we're ready. Great
I'm gonna change into an outfit that doesn't make me feel gross because I've been cooking
all day. I smell like turkey um which could be hot depending on who you ask. Let's find
out. I don't know. Let's start Thanksgiving. My hosting tip is honestly candles. Like have
more candles than you think you need and people will think your house looks great. Hi Seshie.
Hi Eric. Scaping, scapes. My friend Seshie who is by nature and overachiever couldn't
just set the table. She had to tablescape which I love for her and for all of us so
she went out into my little patio and clipped some succulent leaves and put them on the
little plates and it looked really sweet and it kind of like I don't know I was like oh
maybe I should tablescape. The highlight of a party is that everybody had a great time
and loved the food and oh I'd say like one of the best things is that we had very little
leftovers. I got rid of all of the turkey. I got rid of almost all the stuffing. I kept
some for myself. This was a very packed house and I was able to move all of the product.
Sachi cheers. Cheers. I'm not a big turkey fan, so the fact that I'm loving this is like
very exciting to me. I was joking but serious that generally I eat like the cranberry sauce
and like macaroni and cheese. As a cook yourself, when you go into people's homes, how do you
feel about being asked to like do something? Do you feel overwhelmed? Are you like thank
god I have something to do? I feel so excited to help. I like the presentation of the turkey
because I feel like it's sloppy sometimes and I liked how you had the drumstick displayed
which was like very Medieval Times and like your turkey was cut perfectly so it just came
out looking good. As a person who doesn't traditionally cook what is your contribution
to the holiday? I like to wait into the absolute last moment and no one is allowed in the kitchen
and I get to put on Janet Jackson and dance by myself and do all the dishes. What was
your favorite thing on the table tonight? The mushrooms by far. They were amazing. Could
you tell her about eight different types of mushrooms in there? Yes. My favorite was the
gratin. The the dark meat of the turkey was beyond. The stuffing. There was a crispy top
and bottom to the stuffing that I've been picking at for hours. I think it's really
nice that we get one holiday a year in this country that is not focused on consumerism
or capitalism and it's also not religious. It is like a thing that anybody can decide
to celebrate and use it as like a full evening to celebrate like cooking food, the people
that you love, and general gratitude. Gratitude practice is really important and if you if
you're not doing it every day, we should at least do it once a year. Hey we're gonna cut this. I'm thankful for you. Are you thankful for
me?
